For many electronic devices, the display is a major source of power drain. For a liquid crystal display (LCD), the number of row lines in the LCD determines the value of the bias voltage, and hence the driving voltages, needed to operate the display. As displays get larger, the number of row lines increases, the bias voltage requirement gets larger, and the power consumption of the bias voltage divider, which uses the bias voltage to provide driving voltages for the LCD, increases.
The power used to turn on and off pixels in an LCD display module is proportional to the square root of the number of row lines in the LCD. In other words, the power consumption of an LCD module is proportional to the row-resolution of the display. Thus, even when only part of the display is used to convey information, a large display uses almost the same amount of power as if the entire display was conveying information. For portable electronic products, such as cellular telephones, personal digital assistants, palm-sized computers, and electronic games, increasing power consumption caused by larger and higher-resolution displays results in decreased battery life.
Thus, there is a need to reduce the power consumption of a display module while maintaining a desired resolution and size but without significantly degrading the display's performance and also without substantially increasing production costs for the display module.